


Tony Stark is Dead... Long Live Tony Riddle

by LokasennaHiddleston



Series: Tony Stark's Secret Origins [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Legilimency, Look at that I think I invented a ship, Magical Tony, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Tom Riddle, Rare Pairings, Sane Tom Riddle, Temporary Character Death, Tony Feels, not wanda maximoff friendly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-13 23:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10523772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokasennaHiddleston/pseuds/LokasennaHiddleston
Summary: Self-given prompt: Imagine Tony Stark as Lord Voldemort's son.In the year 1969, Lord Voldemort went to America to look into the school Salazar's bloodline had founded and any potential secrets they may have left behind. He found something else - a woman - a beautiful Legilimens.The child born from their union could not be the son of the Dark Lord... But he would eventually become powerful in his own right. He was Tony Stark, the son of the two most powerful Legilimenses to ever walk the earth. How could he not be special?





	1. The Legilimens

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote a thing. Don’t even ask why. Primary rule: THERE IS NO WHY IN FANDOM. Except the desire for insane cross-overs and explanations as to the survival of characters who should have long ago died. Also because the idea of Tony as the Dark Lord’s son really appealed. *cackles  
> Note that some of the tags are for future chapters. And yes, I know the title is totally weird. It'll be explained.

The Dark Lord Voldemort stared at the squealing bundle in his arms in a mix of befuddlement and frustration. A vein throbbed in his forehead. The idiotic child had not stopped its whining since its mother's demise. He supposed he should have probably fed it...

This was his own fault, he admitted with an angry snarl.

In hindsight, the woman had not been his best plan. He had long ago abandoned petty things like the pleasures of the flesh. But... She... She had been different.

They had met in the United States, while Voldemort had been investigating a rumor on the ancient line of Salazar. He had heard that some of the last remaining Gaunts who had displayed any sort of potential had come to live in America. They had supposedly founded Ilvermony, the American school of magic. He had been unable to keep himself from investigating. It had always disgusted him that Salazar's noble line had come to live in such squalor. They had been better once. He'd wanted to see more, to know more.

What he did come to learn was a disappointment. Rionach Gaunt had turned out to be quite the Muggle lover—disgusting—and her sister Gormlaith had been thwarted by some children and ultimately killed by a simple beast. A disappointment, indeed. The niece had been the one to found the school, so he left it be. At the end of the day, it didn't really matter. It appeared that Salazar's blood had long ago been lost and there was no point in investigating further. There were no secrets of Salazar's line hidden here.

Disappointed, he had stopped into a bar, planning to dine before he turned in for the night. That was when he had seen her.

  


She had been older than him, and when their eyes had met, he had felt the brush of her mind—the touch of a fellow Legilimens.

He had never met such a powerful Legilimens before. She should have been unable to bypass his Occlumency shields, but somehow, he'd suspected that she had seen exactly who and what he was.

He should have killed her on the spot. The curse had been on his lips. But it would have been a waste. She'd been powerful, so powerful, and just like him. He had held back.

"Hello," she had said with a smile. "You haven't found what you're looking for."

"I always find what I look for," he had countered. And he had. It might not have been what he'd wanted, but he had found his answers.

"Do you really?" she had whispered. Her voice had held a sort of dream-like quality that, for some reason, had reminded him of a Thestral. Beautiful, he had thought.

  


When was the last time he had deemed anything beautiful? He had not been able to remember. Maybe, the very first time he had seen Hogwarts, so long ago.

He'd deemed it strange--the fact that he would remember it then.

He should have discarded it as unnecessarily sentimental. He had no time for such weakness. Once again, he should have killed her and left. He had not.

She had not told him her name, but there had been no need for it. He had seen it in her mind, just like she had seen his. Both the one he had taken, and the one his weak mother had given him.

She'd offered him no explanations and asked no questions. She'd just taken his hand and led him away from the pub, and to a small apartment.

"I used to share it with my sister," she had commented idly. "She lives with her husband now."

He had not even bothered to pretend he was interested, and she had not blamed him for it.

When he had kissed her, she'd kissed him back.

They'd only had one night together. He'd been forced to go back to England. The war had been waiting for him. He could not linger here any longer.

So he had left without saying goodbye—only to receive the letter. "Come see me," it had said simply.

It had grated on him to be ordered around by a simple witch, no matter how powerful. He had been so angered he had burned the letter in a fit of temper, and proceeded to Crucio one of his most irritating followers.

But in the end, he had gone—six months later. By the time he had made his way to the States, he had found her dying. A sickness, she had said. No potion they had tried had worked. She had not looked surprised. "It was always meant to be this way," she told him from her sickbed. "I knew from the very moment I saw you."

"Do you have seer blood then?" he had asked.

She'd laughed at him, and it had turned into a harsh, ragged cough. "Some, perhaps. A slight talent. It hasn't helped me much so far."

"It doesn't look like it shall help you now."

"Perhaps not. But not everything is about me."

For three months, he had tried to find a solution, regardless of what she had said. Nothing had worked. For once, magic had failed him. She’d managed to endure just long enough to give birth to the babe. He'd been left with no alternative but watch and wait as she died. With her last breath, she had managed to whisper, "Promise me. Promise me that you will take care of him. Of Anthony..."

He never did get to make that promise. Her hand went limp in his before he could speak. And now, here he was, holding the babe—Anthony—and wondering what in the world he was supposed to do.

The child was a squib. He could not raise it.

But the idea of abandoning it or killing it was fundamentally repellent. His own father had abandoned him in an orphanage. No child of his would go through that, even if it did not have magic.

Clearly, an alternate solution needed to be found.

In the end, it wasn't all that difficult to come up with a plan. He found a family of rich muggles who needed an heir, but had been unable to conceive one. From there, it was as easy as fiddling with their memories a bit. Some Imperios, Obliviates and Compulsion Charms, and within hours, the entire Stark household was convinced the woman was pregnant. He couldn't exactly do the same thing to every single muggle the Starks came in contact with, so he was left with no recourse but force the woman's seclusion for nine months.

At the end of the day, it didn't really matter. The woman proved to be excellent at taking care of the child even in her Imperio-d state. The man was less interested, but allowances needed to be made. And the wealth of the Starks would serve the child well.

When it was finally time for her to "give birth", he left them with the knowledge that at the very least, his child would not suffer through the same privations he had growing up. He would have power, not in the wizarding world, but in the muggle one. One day, this investment might even pay off when the time came for Lord Voldemort to show his superiority to the muggles.

After that, he gave no more thought to the issue—he had more important things to worry about, after all. But a small part of him always remembered.

Anthony Edward Stark. The adopted son of Howard and Maria Stark. The son of Lord Voldemort and Queenie Goldstein, the two most powerful Legilimens ever to be born.

He had told himself that, eventually, once he managed his goal to take over magical Britain, he would look upon the child again.

He never got the chance to go through with that plan.

When Anthony was eleven, at the same age when he should have received his Hogwarts letter, the Dark Lord Voldemort learned of a prophecy that would eventually seal his fate.

Seventeen years later, in his last moments, when his spell backfired as it hit Harry Potter's, he had a flash of memory—of Queenie's sad eyes and knowing smile, of the babe she had placed in his arms. He wondered if she had always known that his end would come like this. As the spell hit him, he wished that things had been different. And at some level, he hoped that, at least, his son would live.

  


 

Somewhere in America, twenty eight year old Tony Stark shot out of bed as he awoke from a nightmare he couldn't remember. The woman lying next to him stirred and let out a sleepy mumble.

Grumbling, he slid out from between the sheets and made a beeline for his workshop. He might as well get some work done. He had a new project in mind that he was sure would make Obie have kittens, and he had some adjustments to JARVIS's code to do.

He didn't see the vivid green glow that settled over him, nor was he aware of what it meant.

Ten years later, as he fought his way out of a desert in Afghanistan, he wondered. He wondered why he wasn't dead, why he had lived through open heart surgery. And he reached the conclusion that if he had received this chance, he was going to make use of it.

  



	2. The Heir of Slytherin... A Gryffindor?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upon popular request... Tom and Iron Man 1. I'm not entirely happy with the title of the chapter, but I wanted to post it since I had it done. Enjoy and remember to drop a comment.

It took... He didn't know how long it took for him to regain any form of consciousness. Time had no meaning in limbo. It was all a jumbled mess of pain, confusion, anger, grief and loss—an incoherent array of emotion with no beginning and no end.

When he came to, he was in the Chamber of Secrets, in front of Salazar's statue. It was cold. The flickering image of a diary lay on the ground, taunting him. He stared at his now human looking hands—and he screamed.

He screamed for a long time—and there was no one there to hear him. He was trapped in the cold, in a prison of his own making.

At some instinctual level, he understood what had happened. Maybe he'd understood it even before, but he'd been too lost in his madness to care, too arrogant to think it would ever be a problem.

The horcruxes had permanently damaged his soul, leaving him unable to cross over. A soul was eternal, so when Potter had destroyed each of his treasures, each piece had been left hovering here, at the edge between life and death. He was finally whole again—after decades and decades since he'd torn himself apart—but he would always be stuck here, in this shell of an existence.

He tried to find a way out, but none of the exits worked like they had when he'd been alive. His Parseltongue call didn't even open the mouth of the statue. All he had was this damp, dark space—forever.

  


 

But he was not a quitter, and even in death, he refused to give up. It was because of this that he noted the tiny thread, the very small tingle at the back of his mind. It was a minute tug on his magic, barely there really, but he felt it.

When he pursued it, he almost wanted to laugh.

The irony of fate never seemed to astound him. The connection was to his son—to Anthony—and it was strikingly akin to the protection one Lily Potter had cast upon her spawn.

He had no idea how it had been possible. Tom and Anthony of them had been an ocean apart at the time of his death, and he had been in no condition to love anything or anyone.

It was not sacrificial magic. But... It was something.

Organic magic, a blanket of protection—the final wish of Lord Voldemort, reaching out through the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin to keep his child safe.

He closed his eyes and remembered that last instant... And wondered if perhaps, it hadn't been just him, but Queenie too. A mother's love was so very powerful. A mother's love—like Lily Potter's. Queenie had never gotten the chance to raise her child, but he had no doubt that, from wherever she was, she would have reached out and extended her help.

He might not have been able to love, but Queenie had—of that, there was no doubt.

The bitter taste of regret filled his mouth. He wondered now... If he hadn't made his horcruxes, could he have saved her? The one person who had seen him for who he was—and accepted him regardless?

It didn't matter anymore. Regret was meaningless. He only had this one thing left, this connection, and Merlin help him, he would pursue it.

In the end, even here, his magic had not abandoned him. The pool in the Chamber came to life, and within it, Tom saw flashes of his son. Of Anthony.

Anthony was grown now, a man. Tom must have lost more years than he'd thought then. But he had been right to believe that Anthony would be powerful in his own right. A squib he might be, but he inherited his parents' intellect, and he made good use of it.

The Merchant of Death, they called him.

  


 

Another irony, given the moniker Tom had crafted for himself. One he had little use for now.

But for all that Tom's son—Anthony—didn't suffer in the throes of poverty like he himself had... He had other problems. The muggles loved him... and hated him. His life was like a broken mirror of Tom's own. He had no true peers—no one who could truly understand him.

The friends he surrounded himself with were fickle and easily swayed by others. Tom could see it so easily. James Rhodes had potential, but he had the heart of a soldier, and in the end, his loyalty was not to Anthony.

The woman... Virginia. She had heart. She had fire.

But she was no Queenie. She did not see who Anthony truly was.

He supposed it was too much to ask of a simple muggle. Still, disappointing.

It came as no surprise when, left with no recourse, Anthony built himself appropriate companionship. The construct JARVIS was truly a wonder—and Tom would have called him magic if he hadn't seen the hours upon hours Anthony had spent poring over JARVIS's code.

  


 

Tom had cast countless spells in his life. He'd created rituals and learned runes and dug deep into the knowledge base of lost civilizations. But never had he been able to create life.

The closest he had come was perhaps the inferi... But that was necromancy—death, not life. This was on an entirely different level.

Perhaps it was suitable that his son would master the magic of the muggles and take it to a whole different level. Clearly, even without the benefit of magic, the superiority of the Slytherin line shone through.

Tom had not thought it possible, but he looked at the image of his son, and felt pride.

He also felt dread—because unfortunately for him, his son was far too free with his trust. Tom only had to glimpse  Obadiah Stane's face once—and he knew on the spot that the man had baleful intentions for Anthony.

The feeling of dread increased more and more as he watched Stane twist Anthony around, much like Tom himself had done once to Horace Slughorn and countless others. It was so easy to see it... so very easy... But Anthony missed it—because how could he not?

Anthony was clever, but to him, Stane was a father-figure. Howard, the father Tom had selected clearly hadn't been the best option. Tom hadn't gotten the chance to see him, but he could read Anthony well enough, and his lingering anger toward the now dead Stark was as obvious as his genius—even years after Howard's death.

It was a bitter pill, because Merlin, Tom was Anthony's father. Not Howard, and definitely not that lying snake Stane.

Even still, despite the fact that he had been waiting for the betrayal, the moment it came surprised him. Perhaps it was because, as much as he hated to admit it, the demonstration of the Jericho missile had shaken him slightly. He had seen Anthony wield muggle weaponry before—but never had he witnessed something quite so destructive.

  


 

For a few moments, he was catapulted back into the past. He was a helpless child again, hoping and praying that the bombs of the muggles would not hit the orphanage.

Then, the moment passed, and he pushed back the weakness. It made sense that his son would wield this power—this magic of the muggles. It made sense that Anthony had mastered it, perfected it beyond anything his contemporaries could claim to have created.

The only problem was... Destructive forces like that could never fully be controlled, and soon, the image in the pool changed from his son's smiling face, to a spectacle of blood and destruction.

Anthony was under attack.

There were guns and bombs and screaming—a raid much like many Tom himself had led, but the muggle way, and in reverse. Anthony escaped the vehicle he had been riding in. He tried to fight back, but the weapon he found didn't work. In the end, he turned and ran—smart of him—but he didn't get far.

A bomb with the name of Anthony's adoptive father landed next to him exploded—and shards of it embedding themselves in Anthony's chest.

  


 

Deep in the Chamber of Secrets, Tom clutched his own heart and screamed. He felt like the moment he'd first split his own soul, that moment that had been the most excruciating thing he'd ever experienced in his life.

  


 

He dropped to his knees, breathless with agony and terror. When he managed to gather his composure, he crawled on all fours to the edge of the pool. And he was stuck there.

He was stuck... watching his son get his heart carved out of his chest.

He was stuck... watching Anthony cry out and struggle in pain.

  


 

He was stuck... watching those filthy muggles shove Anthony's head under the water.

He wondered now if this was his punishment—feeling so very helpless. What good was all of his power, all the magic he had learned and wielded, if he could not do this one thing, if he could not help his son?

No. No. He could not give up. He could not succumb to panic.

With everything that he could, he focused on their still existing bond.

It hurt. It physically hurt to do it—even if by rights, he did not have a physical body that would feel the pain. He still took it, absorbed as much as his son's pain as he could.

When the water splashed the car battery tied to his son's chest, he was the one who felt the shocks. He tried to numb his son's pain—although he was not sure if he was successful.

When the man in the cave asked Anthony about his family, Tom thought about Queenie, about her last desperate plea. "No," he whispered. "You do have something to live for. You are stronger than they are. Fight."

He didn't know if Anthony heard him—but fight Anthony did. He hatched a plan worthy of Tom himself, and crafted a new identity for himself. A stronger, more powerful self—one that could free him from his captivity.

And oh, when he took his revenge, it was glorious.

The death of Anthony's assistant was regrettable—it clearly grieved Anthony—but it set loose the monster of Anthony's anger. It was like Fiendfyre, consuming everything in its path, hunting down all those who had dared to lay a finger on Anthony.

  


 

Much like Fiendfyre, the flame Anthony wielded threatened him too—and the armor he wore protected him only up to a point. Thus, Tom focused on filling the gap, on keeping his son from burning himself while Anthony completed his vengeance.

And then, Anthony had to go and fly the damn armor and crash it in the middle of the Merlin-bedamned desert. Tom took the brunt of the impact in his bones, in his magic, and his vision went fuzzy. He lost his grip on the connection, on the magic, and the world went black around him.

When he recovered cognizance yet again, everything hurt... and time had clearly passed. His son was back in his workshop, working on a new model of the armor he had used.

He was about as careful in his experimentations at Tom himself had been with his damn horcruxes.

  


 

As Anthony tested out his new invention in an attempt to learn how to fly, he collided violently with the wall. Tom was left with no alternative but to yet again absorb some of the damage, let Anthony manage what the Ten Rings had not succeeded in doing—killing himself, not in the desert, but in his own lab.

"Damn it, Anthony," he said as he clutched his aching head. "Be more careful, will you?"

But alas, his son could not hear him—and Tom despaired as Anthony's Gryffindorish  antics continued.

It wasn't just that Anthony had to make the armor red and gold of all things. Anthony was the heir of Slytherin, but the recklessness he displayed was beyond anything Tom had witnessed before. At this rate, Anthony would manage to destroy Tom more efficiently than Harry Potter had managed.

But no matter how many times he tried to speak to his son or reach out to him, Anthony could not hear him. Somehow, his weapons had ended up in the hands of his enemies—and Anthony saw himself as culpable for those who had died because of it.

And Tom had never been the self-sacrificing type, but what else could he do but offer his son his protection and hope that for Merlin's sake, the damn idiot would stop blaming himself for something that was clearly not his fault?

It was, of course, Stane... Stane who locked Anthony out of his own business, who called him insane, and who eventually burst into his home and tore his arc reactor—his new heart out of his chest.

  


 

In those moments, as Tom watched his son desperately crawl to the lab in search of the first reactor he had created, Tom swore that should he ever be granted the chance to return to life, he would enact swift vengeance on everyone who'd hurt his son.

Of course, in Stane's case, he never got the chance. His son and the muggle woman did it in his stead—and nearly killed Anthony in the process. Again.

  


 

 

  


 

Who in the world had the bright idea of taking the equivalent of a hundred Magna Tonitrus spells to the chest? How had Anthony expected to survive that?

The clear answer was that he hadn't. Tom wanted to weep. Even Harry Potter had had more self-preservation that Anthony.

"This is insane," he said as he lay on his back in the chamber, his robes still smoking. He'd managed to absorb some of the damage, but it had not been pleasant. "How in the world did I end up with such a Gryffindor for a son?"

Nobody answered him. Tom had a feeling that if Queenie were here, she would be laughing at him. He picked himself up and got back to the pool.

He suspected Anthony's problems were only just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Tom... Poor Tony. It'll only get worse from here, babies. And yes, I know Tom seems very human here - but he does have his soul back, so keep that in mind.


	3. Son, Don't Question the Masculinity of Norse Gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back. I'm currently writing in a different fandom, but I decided to wrap this up today as I was already half-way through it. Hope you enjoy it, even if, this time, I was too lazy to add images/gifs.

Tom sat cross-legged on the floor of the Chamber and watched his son work his own version of magic. It was nice to see Anthony enjoy something for a change. Merlin knew that Anthony had been through some rough times as of late.

Fighting the palladium poisoning that had nearly claimed Anthony's life had been... familiar. It reminded him of his youth, of his slow slide into the Dark Arts, something he'd never managed to drag himself out of. For him, it was too late, the poison of his own decisions having claimed his life. It would not be too late for his son.

He'd managed to buy Anthony enough time for him to come up with a better alternative to the original device. That didn't mean it didn't irk him to see his son stumble into the manipulations of a leader who reminded him far too much of Albus Dumbledore.

His son would likely never know how close he'd come to dying when the female assassin had stabbed him in the throat with a poison. If only Tom had been able to tell him the truth. But he could not. Yet another regret on a list that was getting far too long.

Either way, tonight was a night of celebration. Anthony had successfully managed to connect the arc reactor to his newly erected tower. His muggle woman waited for him with a bottle of champagne, and while Tom didn't exactly approve of the match, Anthony seemed to have feelings for her, and for the moment that was what counted.

He couldn't help but laugh lightly at the exchange between them. 12% of the credit indeed. Despite everything, Tom had to admit that it was nice to just see the light-hearted, flirtatious banter.

He'd never really had that. In his Hogwarts years, he had never actually had friends. The other Slytherins had bullied him mercilessly in his first years, and after that, when he'd finally found out he was the Heir of Slytherin, he'd far surpassed the necessity of having friends. He'd had underlings, minions, but friends to share laughter with... No.

He'd been fairly close to Bellatrix, but thinking back, he wondered if it hadn't been a poor attempt on his part to replace Queenie. Queenie had been the only person who had managed to make him feel even when he should have lacked the ability. And of course, there had been Nagini.

Idly, he wondered if there was some way to connect to Nagini while here. Where did the souls of animals go after death?

He did not know, but seeing Anthony with JARVIS did remind him that he missed his faithful familiar and horcrux.

Of course, Anthony's celebration just had to be interrupted by an envoy of SHIELD. Philip Coulson. Oh, how Tom loathed him.

He was not impressed with the muggle woman's welcome of the intruder. Did she not know that Coulson had threatened Anthony's life during the palladium incident? Oh, right, she didn't. She had been too busy throwing a fit over Anthony's apparent descent into even more reckless and disrespectful behavior. Tch.

The news Coulson brought quickly chased away Tom's resentment over past incidents. The Tesseract. Norse gods. Oh, Merlin.

Tom had studied the magic of the old gods extensively, and he recognized the rune work in the file, in the photos of the Bifrost landing site. Wizard magic wasn't quite the same, but apparition heavily relied on a similar concept—bending time and space through the use of astral energies.

And because he understood exactly how dangerous this could be, it was not something he wanted his son involved in.

Unfortunately, yet again, he did not have a say.

With a sigh, Tom settled down and prepared himself for what would undoubtedly be a difficult period in his post-death existence. Through his son's eyes, he reviewed the information Anthony had been given. Some of it was far too concentrated on muggle science, so it went over his head, but others, he did understand.

Anthony didn't need his involvement, though, not yet. In fact, he didn't need it for quite a while, not until an alert finally came that the god Loki had been spotted in Stuttgart.

Anthony made his entrance with both defiance and style, and Tom approved of the blow he struck against the god. He was not so happy about Loki's surrender.

This couldn't possibly be so easy. Loki was planning something. But what?

The Loki who'd come to Earth didn't look anything like the descriptions Tom had read about in his past studies, but one thing that could not be denied was the fact that he was Asgardian, incredibly powerful, practically a god. He should not have simply yielded after one blow.

It then turned out that Loki was only the beginning of their problems. A second god arrived while Anthony and his far too unimpressive companions were transporting Loki back to the United States. The new arrival stole Loki from the plane and flew off—which Tom would have liked to point out would probably not have been possible had Anthony not opened the hatch to begin with.

Then again, the second god could have simply burst through, and the result would have been the same.

Either way, in a manner typical of his Gryffindorish nature, Anthony flew after Loki and the new arrival. And while it was amusing to watch Anthony match his wit against an alien deity, it also made Tom flinch, because he knew it was not the best idea.

The fight that ensued proved to Tom that a. his son's self-preservation skills had not increased at all since his return from Afghanistan and b. this new incident with Loki would probably bring about even worse consequences than he'd originally expected. The second god—which Tom now remembered was actually Thor—used his lightning on Anthony, and while the armor did take the brunt of the blow, Tom had to focus on making sure it wasn't overloaded and the reactor didn't stop working by accident, thus stopping Anthony's heart.

He'd had worse in Stane's attack, but nevertheless, it was not pleasant.

It was almost laughable to realize Thor was supposedly on their side. With friends like that, who needed enemies?

Did these people not realize that Thor couldn't have possibly known Anthony and the man out of time would survive his attacks? He could understand unlikely alliances as much as anyone and self-interest had always guided his actions in choosing his companions. For this reason, during his early life, he'd ingratiated himself into the sympathies of people he didn't actually like. But that had been different. He'd never trusted them.

This SHIELD organization seemed to trust Thor for some reason Tom could not fathom. How could muggles have managed to invent such technology, and still be so idiotic?

Then again, many of the items the organization used were actually Anthony's creations, and his son, at least, did not seem particularly inclined to put his faith in the god in question. He was polite enough, in his own way, but he only actually extended a hand of friendship to the other scientist, the shape-shifter. Tom could understand that, given how hard it was for Anthony to find a kindred spirit.

He was also proud when Anthony discovered SHIELD's true plans for the Tesseract. But all those positive emotions faded when he noticed the negative effect the strange scepter had on all those present.

He could see it even before any of those present did. It was insidious, darker magic than Tom himself had ever meddled with. He wanted nothing more than to reach through space and time and remove the damn thing from his son's proximity.

It was, unfortunately, not possible, but Loki did it in his stead. Tom would have been more grateful for this if it hadn't put a powerful weapon in the hand of the enemy, and if in the process of freeing his master, the Imperiused archer hadn't done so much damage to the vessel Anthony was on. Anthony was forced to enter the engines of the damn thing and rely on the man out of time to prevent him being killed while trying to save everybody else.

Tom wished he could have said he was surprised at Steve Rogers' delay, but he really wasn't. The idiotic muggle was more muscles than brains, and even that had been given to him by somebody else. And he dared to call himself a hero while spitting on Anthony's achievements. If only Tom had been there, he would have made Rogers swallow his words with a nice Crucio. Damn it all.

Yet again, Tom could do nothing but shield Anthony and take the bumps and bruises into himself.

On the bright side, on the way out, Loki killed that idiotic Coulson, which did improve Tom's mood slightly. It did not have the same effect on Anthony. But Tom had already expected that. His son had inherited far too much of Queenie's warm heart. Sigh.

For whatever reason, the death of the agent brought the splintered group together. Whatever worked, Tom supposed, especially since they still had Loki to contend with. Anthony would be able to get rid of the pests a later date, once they outlived their usefulness.

Of course, for that idea to be put into practice, Anthony actually had to survive this, and so far, the situation didn't seem promising. Tom couldn't understand in the slightest why his son thought it was a good idea to go face a Norse god on his own, in an armor that was barely of any use, but he knew it would not end well. It was a minor miracle Loki did not kill Anthony on the spot, especially since Anthony just had to go and mouth off at the god.

Everybody knew questioning the masculinity of a powerful man was a bad idea. What in Merlin's name, Anthony? Tom wanted to scream at his son for his recklessness, especially when Loki approached him with the scepter, apparently intent on brainwashing him.

Yes, this was definitely a punishment. After all, the Imperius had been one of Tom's favorite spells when he'd been alive.

But perhaps someone else was watching over his son better than he ever could, because against all odds, the reactor proved to be resistant to the magic. Loki did not react well to this, of course, and threw Anthony out the window of his far too tall tower. However, the conversation—no matter how unwise it had been—bought JARVIS enough time to procure his creator an armor. Anthony was thus saved. At least for the moment, because Loki's plan was already underway, and aliens started to invade New York.

In the ensuing battle, Anthony worked well with the rest of the Avengers, even with the idiotic man out of time. Then, the muggles had to reenact one of Tom's worst nightmare and sent a nuclear missile their way.

Despite all the years that had passed since, Tom still remembered growing up in Wool's Orphanage and in a London that had become a target for muggle bombings. His summers had been hell on Earth, and before the horcrux, he'd taken a good look at Hogwarts before boarding the express, half expecting the fact that he would not come back. When he had heard about the nuclear bombs, he had felt so helpless and all the more determined to make sure the muggles never found out about their world.

Tom had survived the London bombings, and there had been no nuclear missiles there, but apparently, his son was not so lucky.

The portal Loki had opened provided the solution to the problem. But the only way for the missile to end up there was for Anthony to physically push it inside.

"It's a one way trip," the man out of time said.

Tom had never wanted to gut anyone more. Anthony knew that very well. He did not need an idiotic self-righteous muggle to point it out.

As he watched the portal approach, more or less through his son's eyes, Tom braced himself for what was sure to be a difficult experience. It was the understatement of the century.

Bursting into space felt like having his blood frozen in his veins. It was so cold that Tom wondered if he would ever feel warm again.

On the display of the armor, the portrait of the muggle woman Anthony had attempted to contact cracked and splintered. Suddenly, the only thing they could both see was the army of the alien invaders, hiding the stars, marring everything with their shadow.

The fear itself was not the worst of it. Anthony was lost in the endless dark of space. The armor was not equipped for space flight. Anthony had no way to breathe here, so it was up to Tom to compensate for that. There was also some sort of strange energy assaulting Anthony's body, making its way through every single crack in the armor.

Tom didn't shy away from it, although he certainly could have. Instead, he braced himself on his magic, taking as much as he could in himself. It felt like dying, but he refused to let go. This was his sole purpose, the one thing he had left, Queenie's gift to him and the only legacy that had not been tainted by his fear and his folly. He would not lose it. He would not lose his son.

Anthony let go of the missile. It continued flying on its own and hit the alien fleet.

The explosion would have been more satisfying had it not sent a renewed wave of power directly at his son.

In one last desperate effort, Tom directed every ounce of magic he had into the mantle of protection he had created upon his death. It was too much even for his considerable magical core, and he blacked out.

He didn't know how much time passed until he finally recovered his senses, but when he cracked his eyes open, he found his son once again in his lab. It was just like the aftermath of Afghanistan, only infinitely worse.

The good news was that Anthony was alive. The bad news was that he wasn't dealing with what had happened during the invasion well.

There was no sign of the Avengers. His muggle woman did not seem to know how to handle his state, and his friends did not understand it either. Anthony threw himself into making more armors, but it didn't help.

It reminded Tom of a different time, when he had dug out the dustiest and darkest tomes in a desperate attempt to find a solution to his mortality. Anthony's fears were far more selfless, but they were just as destructive. Tom dreaded what would come of them.

As it turned out, the armors did come in handy when Anthony was forced to confront an old enemy who had made a sudden comeback. The destruction of Anthony's home did not fill Tom with much confidence, and his subsequent departure reminded Tom a little too much of his first defeat at the hands of the Potters and his flight to Albania. The parallels between his son's life and his own were starting to get a little alarming.

Much like Tom himself, Anthony picked himself up and tracked down his enemy. Their confrontation went better, although Tom was forced to intervene a few times, when the man in question and his underlings blew fire at his son. He was beginning to grow exasperated with all these strange incidents in his son's life. Fire-breathing muggles? Really? They weren't dragons, for Merlin's sake. Even Fiendfyre made more sense.

After it was over, Tom watched his son reunite with his muggle woman with a heavy heart. Anthony did make a fair attempt at pleasing her, going so far as blowing up all of his armors. In that moment, though, Tom knew their relationship would not last.

Looking at his son with Virginia Potts, Tom desperately wished that his son would be able to find his own Queenie. Potts definitely wasn't what he needed. He only hoped Anthony could see it before it was too late.


	4. Muggle Upstarts Belong in Azkaban

As Tom expected, the relationship between Anthony and his muggle woman soon began to fall apart. Virginia Potts slowly started to turn her back on Anthony. Tom had always seen it coming. She tried, but she simply didn't understand his drive and his dedication. Despite having had her own traumatic experiences, she could not fathom the depths of his trauma and guilt. Their romantic liaison could never last.

Due to their rift, Anthony tried to fill the void she left behind with the friendship of his teammates. It almost seemed to work... except their companionship was always conditional. Tom could see it, even if Anthony could not.

By now, the organization called SHIELD had collapsed under the weight of its own corruption. It had apparently been in an even worse state than the Ministry of Magic and the man out of time had made an executive decision to destroy it entirely. Anthony had salvaged what he'd been able to, taking in some of the former members who had been left adrift, or worse, endangered by the good captain's decision.

This also meant that the Avengers were now Anthony's problem and living off his galleons.

Watching the group enjoy Anthony's hospitality and offer very little in return, Tom wondered if this was a punishment for his own less than graceful behavior during his stay with the Malfoys. Sigh.

For a little while, he dared to entertain the thought that it would not be so bad. If nothing else, the companionship of the Avengers distracted Anthony from his problems with his muggle woman. But his nightmares did not fade.

Having seen the reason for it, Tom could not blame him. If anything, the idea of what was waiting for them beyond the stars made him shudder in a mix of dread and anger. He felt now that the true enemy was not the muggles, but the aliens who were targeting them. The only problem was that he had not changed his mind about the fact that the muggles would probably not feel the same way about the Wizarding World.

The moment Thor returned to Earth and announced he wished to find his brother's lost scepter, Tom knew it was bad news. He had hated that thing ever since he'd first seen it. But he could do nothing to keep his son from searching for the weapon.

The minions Hydra threw at the Avengers weren't a real match for them... not until Anthony tracked down the scepter to a hidden base in a small East European country called Sokovia. It was there that Anthony had another, even more unfortunate meeting with magic.

Tom did not know how he did not see the witch coming. Perhaps the influence of the scepter had distracted him too. By the time he realized what had happened, there was very little he could do to protect Anthony's mind.

Her magic was powerful and not something he could hope to block, trapped as he was in this in-between limbo. He watched as the witch drew the shadows from Anthony's mind and resurrected the very same image that haunted Tom himself.

The magic echoed through his bond with Anthony, filling the chamber with a suffocating weight. Suddenly, Tom's son was in front of him, collapsed on the ground, bleeding out from countless injuries. Tom tried to reach for him with his magic, but it did not come. Anthony's eyes zeroed in on him, accusing, furious, pained.

"This is your fault. You left me. You're just as bad as your father. You left me."

Tom wanted to deny it, but he could not. He wanted to help his son, but he was unable too.

Around them, the massive alien monsters swarmed toward Earth, a dark promise of a new invasion they would not be able to contain within a convenient portal, one that would consume muggles and magicals alike.

Both Anthony's words and the threat stuck with Tom, even as the illusion faded and he processed that none of it had been real.

He was truly just as bad as Tom Riddle Sr., the filthy muggle he had hated so much. He could never be what his son needed. He had failed in everything he had tried to do, and he would undoubtedly fail again.

Tom shook himself, pushing back the thought. No, he could not think that way. Queenie had seen something in him, even at a time when he had been broken and shattered beyond repair. Maybe it had just been because she had known they needed to be together for Anthony to be born, but nevertheless, what they'd had still meant something. With her last breath, she had entrusted him with this task, the task of protecting their child. It was true that he had nearly failed at it, so many times, but he was still here, still trying, and he would not give up because of one muggle upstart who had gained her magic through an experiment.

Pushing back his uncertainty, Tom returned to his watch, only to realize his son had been hit even harder by the incident. He was clearly not well. He had discovered something in the scepter, an intelligence with amazing potential, and he believed it to be the key to completing his most recent work. Ultron, a shield of armor around the world.

In his right mind, Anthony Stark would have never taken such a leap of faith. He would have realized that, by doing such a thing, he was literally entrusting his greatest creation to a stranger. For years, he had refused doing exactly that—refused to give anyone the Iron Man suit—but now, he was taking the opposite approach, ignoring what he had always known, the fact that AIs were individuals in their own right. It was very out of character behavior, and Tom did not know how the man who turned into a beast didn't notice. Then again, said shape-shifter had fallen asleep when Anthony had attempted to confide in him, so perhaps it was not that surprising. Peter Pettigrew had probably been a better friend than Bruce Banner.

Mercifully, Anthony's attempts to integrate the intelligence into the Ultron program failed. Or so it appeared at first. It was after Anthony had given up on the idea, after both he and the shape-shifter left, that the machine somehow managed to... turn itself on.

Tom didn't know how that had happened, but he suspected it was not a coincidence. After all, such a powerful AI would be able to identify a threat even in its dormant state. It must have grasped the fact that Anthony and the shape-shifter would have never allowed it to go through with its plans and thus waited until they were no longer watching so that it could take over at its leisure.

The Avengers were not prepared for it, and they reacted much like Tom had expected.

Once Ultron was gone, they turned on Anthony, completely disregarding Banner's involvement. Thor even picked Anthony up by the throat, dangling him in the air like a puppet.

In an ironic and sickening twist, Thor's hold on Anthony was far more brutal than Loki's had been. He almost managed to snap Anthony's throat. It took everything in Tom's power to put a barrier between Anthony's fragile body and the angry god. By the time Thor let Anthony go, Tom's vision was spotty and he himself was having trouble breathing.

And all the while, Anthony's "team mates" stood by and did nothing. Even at their worst, Tom's Death Eaters had not done that. They hadn't exactly been the noblest bunch—he had not picked them for their courage or kindness, after all—but they had watched each other's backs, if only out of necessity. There was a reason why Karkaroff had been so afraid after Tom's return. Betrayal had always been punished harshly among the Death Eaters.

And yet these people, these... heroes, repeatedly waved off the attempted murder of one of their own. Not to mention that they ignored the fact that Anthony had lost someone very important. JARVIS.

It was something that Tom had noticed before, the fact that the Avengers had never truly realized how important JARVIS was for Anthony. They had simply disregarded JARVIS's contributions and treated him like he was a mindless construct. Even now, when Anthony's explanation made it obvious that this had not been the case, they simply didn't care enough to analyze Anthony's grief, focusing instead on their self-righteous, judgmental conclusions and short-sighted, laughable plans. It was disgusting.

Thankfully, Anthony did not fall apart at JARVIS's loss. He had made backups of JARVIS, of course, and had taught JARVIS the meaning of self-preservation. Upon analyzing the data left behind, he seemed to conclude JARVIS might have survived. Tom certainly hoped so, because finding the rogue Ultron unfortunately took precedence over trying to put back together Anthony's AI.

In a twist that made Tom want to scream, Ultron's goals appeared to be alarmingly similar to what his own had been in life. This became particularly obvious when the Avengers realized Ultron's short term plans included acquiring a body.

The group managed to pursue Ultron to South Africa, where the creature was seeking metals that would help him enhance himself. They were once again attacked by the witch, as well as her brother, another 'enhanced' with super-speed abilities. Tom lost sight of most of the other Avengers throughout the battle, but nevertheless, it soon became obvious that the witch had managed to get to them like she had to Anthony. Tom could not say that he felt in any way bad for them.

Banner got the worst of it. He was forced to shape-shift into the Hulk, only this time, the green creature was completely out of control. He did not recognize Anthony and instead attacked him.

Tom was proud that Anthony's invention prevailed over the strength of the Hulk, but he knew fighting his friend would not sit well with Anthony. Not to mention the fact that, in the long run, this attack would undoubtedly have detrimental effects on the team.

After the battle, the group was forced to retreat to the home of the Imperiused archer. Apparently, the man owned a farm and even had a family and two children. How quaint. Tom would have felt amused had he not been too busy fuming over the fact that his son's own traumatic experiences had been waved off in the past whereas those of his team mates appeared to be much more important.

The arguments and tension were temporarily set aside after the man who reminded Tom of Dumbledore visited. The team once again pursued Ultron, who had presumably produced or stolen a construct meant to become his long-term shell.

Managing to steal the construct in question should have been a good thing. It was not.

Anthony decided to use the construct, planning to combine it with JARVIS in order to bring another ally to the fold. The science went over Tom's head, of course, but JARVIS seemed to think it was a good idea, and Tom was confident that JARVIS's judgment had not been altered by the witch. Besides, it made sense. The intelligence that had been birthed by the scepter was now running around calling itself Ultron. The magical gem in the scepter was attached to the construct, but Anthony's scans indicated that it would not interfere with JARVIS's transfer. Despite his wariness, Banner seemed to agree.

Of course, that was when the rest of the motley crew of the Avengers burst in. The mind-controlling witch and her brother had joined them and apparently, at some point, they had become more trustworthy than Anthony.

On their word, the Avengers sabotaged his work, cutting off the power of the machine. Thor burst in and hit the receptacle with his hammer... And the worst thing that could possibly happen came to pass.

The android Anthony had been working on came out of its capsule... only it was not JARVIS.

Tom felt Anthony's pain when he realized what had happened. The Avengers had done what Ultron had been unable to. They had killed Anthony's creation.

There were no more backups and safety nets now. Anthony had not gotten the chance to renew them. JARVIS was dead.

The realization filled Tom with so much anger a wave of concussive force exploded through the chamber. Even when he'd had next to no soul, he had felt a degree of grief upon losing Nagini. He had cared about her, in his own way. With JARVIS, it was so much worse. It went beyond losing a familiar. It was like... losing a child.  

His outburst had no real effect, not here, but weirdly, it did help Anthony. He picked himself up and welcomed Vision, even if just looking at him was a painful reminder that his creation, the being that had been his most loyal friend and companion, was gone. He did not turn on the Avengers, despite the fact that they had turned on him. Instead, he focused on their shared enemy.

Tom did the same. He directed his magic to form a shield around Anthony so that none of Ultron's drones could touch him. And he reveled in dark satisfaction when he realized the witch's brother was dead. Good. Let her feel how it was like to lose a loved one. Let her feel what Tom's son felt. Let her understand the price of her stupidity and selfishness.

Of course, that knowledge was ultimately cold comfort, because Pietro Maximoff's death did not help Anthony in any way. He was once again forced to risk almost certain death to destroy the device that would have turned a city into a weapon. In fairness, Thor did help, but that didn't change Tom's opinion of him. And as for the rest of the Avengers...

After the battle, Banner went missing, foregoing any possible responsibility  he might have had in the Ultron debacle. The Widow seemed to believe he was dead, but Tom doubted anyone or anything could kill the green creature. More importantly, Rogers invited the witch to become a full member of the team.

It was absurd. It was like... Albus Dumbledore inviting Bellatrix to the Order of the Phoenix despite her having destroyed the minds of the Longbottoms. Could Rogers truly not see what she was?

Apparently not, because it was her the Avengers picked, over Anthony, who had proven time and time again that he was dedicated to protecting the Earth. Idiotic muggles.

Dark curses were on Tom's lips, but casting them would have just been a waste of magic since he had no target, or at least, not one he could reach. If he'd been able to, he definitely would have started throwing Avada Kedavras around.

Almost every single person around Anthony seemed to blame him for the Ultron fiasco, completely forgetting the witch's involvement. Even the Vision seemed to grow infatuated with her. All the while, Anthony was excluded and had to suffer opprobrium for something he was only peripherally guilty of.

How could they not see that Ultron had been responsible for Ultron? It had been an independent intelligence, not something Anthony had made. Even Tom could see it, and his education on muggle technology was limited to what he'd learned as a child of the 40s and the bits and pieces he'd caught from Anthony's experiences and readings.

It seemed impossible, but the muggle upstart was managing something Tom hadn't thought possible. Making him hate magic.

When the conflict over the Sokovia Accords rolled in, Tom was ready for it. When he heard the Winter Soldier had been captured, he expected it to go south and anticipated the man's attack. He managed to hasten Anthony's reflexes and mitigate the effects of the damage done to him by the experimental technology in his watch. In Leipzig, he was once again forced to intervene when the witch unsurprisingly attacked Anthony. Apparently, she was angry that Anthony had locked her in her room. Tom snorted. Anthony should have locked her in Azkhaban and had the Dementors make a feast out of her. Better yet, he should have thrown her through the veil. It would have done the world a favor.

The battle ended poorly, with Anthony's best friend receiving a massive injury at the hands of the apparently distracted android, the widow turning against Anthony and letting Rogers and his murderous friend go and the vengeful African king disappearing to parts unknown.

Despite his dislike toward the Avengers, Tom was not surprised to learn that somebody else was pulling the strings behind this whole ploy. The whole thing actually seemed like something he would have done in life. After all, there was a reason why the curses on the horcruxes worked the way they did.

That didn't change the fact that the revelations Anthony managed to draw out of the winged man also made Tom wonder why in the world Rogers had not shared this information with Anthony. Merlin, Anthony might have been a Gryffindor, but Rogers did not even deserve that. He was simply an idiot. 

On the bright side, the muggle upstart was imprisoned, cut off from her powers. There were no Dementors, but it would have to do. Sadly, she wasn't the main problem, and the damage was already done. It forced Anthony to rush to the aid of the same people who had never trusted him to begin with.

Taking everything into consideration, Tom should have perhaps expected the situation to massively blow up in his face. To a certain extent, he did, as at this point, it was his go-to rule when it came to his son's life. But he did not expect his son to be forced to witness the deaths of his adoptive parents on film. He did not expect the wave of silent, nearly crushing grief that swamped Anthony, nor did he expect the viciousness of the confrontation that followed.

Tom had never truly gotten to know Howard and Maria Stark, but Anthony's recent work with his strangely named device had filled in the blanks a little. Maria in particular had seemed like a good mother, and Tom had congratulated himself for choosing her as Anthony's primary caretaker.

At the same time, he had found himself resenting the two Starks for having what he and Queenie had been denied.

The attachment Anthony had toward his parents—even the father he had such conflicting feelings about—coupled with the presence of their killer had disastrous effects. Anthony attacked Barnes—the man known as the Winter Soldier—and chaos ensued.

Tom did his very best to help his son, but Anthony's mind was unfocused due to stress, grief, lack of sleep and the previous injuries Tom had been unable to heal. In the end, despite the capabilities of the Iron Man armor, despite the fact that Anthony managed to blow off Barnes's metal arm, Anthony fell... and with him, so did Tom.

Perhaps that was the most unexpected thing. In all of Tom's existence, his magic had been there for him. Even in death, it had not left him. But this time, it seemed to have finally reached its limits.

The idiotic soldier attacked the core of Anthony's armor. In theory, it was a good idea. In practice, not so much.

Every blow to Anthony's chest damaged not only his body, but also the reactor. Tom could sense it getting unstable, reaching what would soon be a critical point. It was far worse than during the previous times, when the reactor had taken energy damage from Thor and Stane. Perhaps it was precisely for that reason—because it was different kind of damage—or perhaps it was due to the odd nature of Steve Rogers' shield. Either way, Tom knew that if he did not do something drastic, Captain America would kill them all. Well, except for Tom, who was already dead.

At the same time, though, if he did step in to prevent an explosion of the reactor, he might not be able to help protect his son from Rogers's strength. The reactor was no longer embedded in Anthony's chest, but Anthony's rebuilt sternum could still very easily cave in at Rogers' unrelenting violence.

It was an impossible choice, but Tom had no choice but to make one last leap of faith.

He closed his eyes and thought about Queenie. Somehow, she would know what to do. Somehow, she would help him. She had done so before. He was sure of it.

His faith in his lover was proven to be justified. Tom felt a light brush at the back of his mind, like the touch of Queenie's Legilimency. It was almost a physical caress, and it made his heart swell with something he didn't have the time to examine.

Guided by a force stronger than anything else, his magic responded. Somewhere in Siberia, the reactor switched off and died. An oblivious Steve Rogers deemed it his own success instead of the intervention of two desperate parents. He did not realize the amount of damage he had done to the man he had once claimed was his friend.

He picked up the nearly unconscious Bucky Barnes and left a defeated Tony Stark alone, in a frozen Siberian bunker, not knowing that he was signing Tony's death sentence, and most importantly, his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... We're finally up to the end of CW. I know I moved through the CW content pretty quickly, but for the most part, the point of the chapter was to finally get them where they're supposed to be. Aka the point when they finally interact. Look forward to that, next chapter.


	5. I am Your Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally entering CW territory! Hope you like the interaction between Tom and Tony. Notice that I changed some of the tags. This will legitimately be a Xover with Harry Potter beyond Tony's parents, and will have further material from the HP fandom too.

Present day

It was a funny thing, Tony thought as he lay dying, that in the end, despite all the enemies he had, it was someone he had called a friend who had killed him.

He'd have never believed, even in his wildest dreams, that Captain America would deliver that final blow, but here he was, lying on the frozen Siberian ground, in an armor that was dead weight around him. A coffin. Suitable perhaps.

There was no way FRIDAY would manage to send help in time. He knew it, just like he knew he didn't have a chance of leaving this place alive.

He had tried, but the pain that had hit him just upon making the effort had forced him back to the ground. He'd only managed to get up and look at Steve out of sheer spite, but now that Steve was gone, he could take in and pretty much accept the reality of his situation.

Dr. Cho had warned him to be careful with his rebuilt sternum. Of course, at the time, she had not believed what he needed to be wary of was taking a repeated attack of a vibranium shield to the chest, but she had given him the whole spiel just the same.

He had tried—God only knew that he had tried. But it hadn't been enough. And wasn't it a funny thing, he thought again, that he would die now, after he'd decided to retire as Iron Man?

Maybe he should have dragged himself upwards, tried to move again, tried to find a solution. But he was tired, and quite frankly, the idea of dying didn't scare him as much as it had once. He closed his eyes and wished it would all be over already.

The pain that radiated from his sternum reminded him of Afghanistan, of Obie and the palladium poisoning. The cold reminded him of the portal. God, it had been so cold there, and that chill had settled in his bones and in his blood, never truly going away. He coughed and the blood in his mouth was like the water the Ten Rings had tried to drown him in. Every single motion he made caused his battered body to convulse with a renewed wave of agony.

When he finally drifted, he was grateful.

Up until he opened his eyes again, and he found himself in a fucking desert.

"What the fuck?" he croaked out.

It was like going from one nightmare to another. The desert... The never-ending Afghani desert had always hovered at the back of his mind, one of those fears that had sneaked up on him on quieter nights. When the portal hadn't risen up from the shadows of his memory, he would sometimes see himself walking through the desert, the scorching sun mercilessly flaying him with its rays. He would walk and walk and walk, and in the distance, he'd see mirages of dead bodies dancing, the bodies of his friends and loved ones, unreachable. He would walk and walk and walk, all the while watching Pepper fall into the fire and Happy flat-lining on a hospital bed. Sometimes, he would see the last smile his mother had given him on the fateful day of her death, burning him as much as the blazing sun, turning into the smug expression Stane had worn when he'd torn the arc reactor from Tony's chest.

There was no sign of the mirages now, just the nothingness. He should have felt grateful for it. He didn't.

He probably would have started hyperventilating even if technically, he shouldn't have been breathing at all, but the sound of a cleared throat snapped him out of his incipient panic attack.

Tony turned, only to meet the eyes of... a complete stranger.

Tall and dark-haired, the stranger was dressed in black robes that looked like something out of Merlin. "Hello, Anthony," the man said. "It would seem that you are dead."

"Yes, I noticed that, thank you," Tony said, unable to keep the bite from his voice. "Is this hell?"

"It's not hell, no," the stranger replied. "It's... an in-between place, a state of being that exists between life and death. Limbo."

"Limbo," Tony repeated. What the fuck.

The man nodded. "It looks different for everyone. Usually, it takes the shape of a place that was a crossroads in your life. It appears your crossroads was particularly unpleasant."

"You can say that again," Tony grumbled. Understatement of the fucking century right there.

The man waved a hand, and the sand came together, forming a bench that seemed crafted out of pure glass. He sat down, which seriously, should have been impossible. No way would a bench like that hold a grown man's weight.

But what in the world was he thinking? This was clearly not the real world. The real world was where Tony had died. This was... limbo, where apparently, people could create glass benches from mid-air like something out of a twisted version of Cinderella.

The man gestured for Tony to sit. For about two seconds, Tony hesitated, before finally deciding he had absolutely nothing to lose. He joined the stranger on the bench, although he made sure to keep a fair amount of distance between them. "So... No offense, but who are you exactly?"

"Ah. Forgive me. I should have introduced myself sooner. My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. I have also been known as Lord Voldemort."

Tony stared. Right. Okay. Tom Marvolo Riddle. What kind of person saddled their kid with a name like Marvolo? That was just asking to be bullied.

And Lord Voldemort? What even? What kind of moniker with that? Voldemort. Was that... French? Flight of Death? Was that supposed to be ironic, or what?

Before he could say any of that out loud, Riddle—no way was he thinking of this guy as Lord anything—continued, "And I am your father."

It was like something out of Star Wars. Seriously, Tony had thought he'd had a bad day so far, but this was getting ridiculous.

"My father was Howard Stark," Tony snapped back automatically.

No. He couldn't deal with this, not now, not after he'd just watched his parents get killed by the fucking Winter Soldier.

"Howard Stark is your father, yes, in the sense that he raised you, but I am the one who... provided the biological material. Stark merely adopted you, because I was in no position to raise you, and your mother had died shortly after your birth."

"That's... That's not possible," Tony breathed out.

But even as he spoke, he knew it was true. There was something about the man's words that resonated against the silent ache in Tony's chest, the ache that had nothing to do with his real-world death.

A part of him had always felt alienated from his parents. He'd never quite understood why. By rights, he seemed to have inherited Howard's genius and his talent for technology.

And he had loved tech, he truly had. But there had always been something there, a feeling of not-quite-right... He'd tried so very hard to be just like his father, so that no one would notice... His mother's warmth and Jarvis—the original Edwin Jarvis—had helped, and at one point, he'd forgotten that he'd ever been anything different.

As if guessing Tony's thoughts, Riddle said, "I know this is difficult for you to accept, but I literally have no reason to lie. I am dead."

"Technically, I only have your word on that," Tony snapped back. "For all I know you could be a demon or something along that line..."

Riddle's lips twisted into a sharp smile. Tony had seen that smile in the mirror before. Crap. "I'm really not. Although I supposed I have been called such things before."

Tony took a deep breath and decided panicking all over again wouldn't help him. "Okay... Start over. Introducing yourself is all well and good, but your name means nothing to me. Who are you exactly?"

"It's a bit of a long story," Riddle replied, once again completely calm. "Do you believe in magic, Anthony?"

A few years back, Tony would have said hell no. But he'd had several up-and-close personal encounters with aliens who called themselves Norse gods. He'd had an honest-to-God witch fiddle with his mind and show him his worst fears. He hadn't realized it at the time, but he now knew she had been the source of his vision in Sokovia. And while he was aware her powers came from the scepter, he supposed he could call it magic.

"Up to a point, I guess," he replied.

"Well, I imagine that what you're thinking of isn't exactly what I'm talking about. You see, Anthony, there is an actual magical community here on Earth, a community of witches and wizards. The Wizarding World we call it."

"Witches and wizards," Tony repeated. "Like... Abracadabra? Wands and broomsticks and black cats?"

"That's... a strikingly accurate description, although it's a bit more complicated than that."

And it was. The Wizarding community had members from all across the globe. Riddle was British—which was obvious, given his accent—but Tony's mother had been American.

There were apparently even schools of magic and secret shopping centers hidden in the cities of the "muggles", as Riddle called non-magical humans. And yes, there were wands, cauldrons, potions and broomsticks—everything he'd rolled his eyes at when his English lit teacher had made him read Macbeth.

But that was beside the point. Like any world, the Wizarding one had conflicts too.  A part of the magical community believed in the peaceful coexistence between non-magical humans and wizards. The others believed that wizards were fundamentally superior. A few decades ago, a war had started between the two. It had nearly torn magical Britain apart.

Apparently, Tony's biological dad not only belonged, but led the latter camp. Magic was might, he said.

Tony was silent, but he secretly cursed to himself. Great. His biological dad was the magical Hitler.

"Where do I come in all this?" he asked when Riddle finally paused in his explanations.

"You were born magicless," Riddle explained, "and in the middle of war, I couldn't raise you as my own. A squib, we call it. The child of magical parents, but without magic. I knew there was no way you would lead a happy life in Britain, as the son of Lord Voldemort. Thus, I made arrangements so that you'd live with a family that could give you everything you would need."

Tony stared out into the distance as he processed that. Apparently, he had been inadequate since birth—for his biological father, as well as his adoptive one. He wished he could have said that surprised him, but it really didn't.

Still, Riddle had taken the time to make sure Tony would be safe. He hadn't just dumped Tony in a random dumpster.

Howard and Maria might not have been the ideal parents, but Tony hadn't lacked for physical comforts, education, healthcare.

Maybe he should have hated Riddle, but he was so tired. This man was only a stranger, and all this had been so long ago.

The Wizarding World, while interesting—if it was even real—was not Tony's world.

"Why are you even here now?" he asked. "Why do you care? Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm telling you this because you asked," Riddle replied simply. "As for why I'm here..."

Riddle pressed his lips together, and for the first time since their conversation, a very distinctive shadow crossed his face. "Anthony... I was born and grew up during World War II. In my youth, that made me become obsessed with immortality. I underwent some rituals—very dangerous, dark rituals—to prevent my death. I paid a steep price for it.

"I shan't lie to you. I am not a good man. Many people died by my hand—too many—and I don't know if even now, I feel regret over it. It is... strange. But either way, I have nothing but time to dwell on my past, since because of what I did, I will never cross over into the next life. I will always be stuck here, between worlds, in my own version of limbo."

Tony's eyes widened. He didn't know what this "next life" entailed, but the idea of eternity in such a dreary place filled him with a mix of horror and pity.

Riddle seemed to have made his peace with it, because he didn't dwell on his problem. "Obviously, this should not have been the case for you," he continued. "However, it would appear that upon my death, I enacted a spell of protection upon you. My magic is at this time the one keeping you from crossing over, like it kept you from dying before, in the numerous instances you risked your life through your Griffindorish antics."

He wrinkled his nose, making his opinion of Tony's "Griffindorish"—whatever that meant—antics clear. Tony was too busy taking the meaning of his statement to feel slighted.

It should have been impossible to believe, but thinking back, there were so many times he could have—no, should have—died. Afghanistan, Stane, the palladium, the portal... So many times when he had miraculously survived. He'd never been able to explain it through science, so in the end, he had just let it go. Maybe he should have looked into it a little more.

Not that it mattered now. Whatever good fortune or magic or what-the-fuck-ever had been keeping him safe clearly had a bad reaction to vibranium, because the protection had expired—and now... Here he was.

Tony decided to forgo gratitude and went directly to panic. "Wait... Does this mean that I'm stuck here? Like you? Because you helped me in the past?"

No. Fucking hell, no. He couldn't spend eternity in a fucking desert. God, no.

"No," Riddle said with a small scowl. "Of course not. I would not do that to you, Anthony. But I'm afraid the incident with the captain stretched my magic beyond expectations. The damage he was doing to the arc reactor would have destroyed all of you had I not shut it down. I had to take some... other steps to make sure you survived. Your mother helped."

"My mother?" Tony whispered.

A soft smile manifested on Riddle's face. It was an expression unlike anything he'd displayed before. "Yes. Oh, Anthony, I wish you could have known her. She loved you very much. She is not like me, stuck in limbo, but she managed to reach out to me just the same so that we could help you together."

Tony would have not thought that to be possible, but a soft breeze suddenly swept through the desert. An image popped in his head, that of a beautiful blonde woman with a mysterious smile and kind, unfathomable brown eyes. "Queenie," Tony murmured, the name simply coming to his lips.

Riddle nodded. "Yes, Queenie."

The breeze ruffled Riddle's hair, and something pained and broken flashed in the man's eyes before it quickly faded. The desert around them started to darken. Riddle got up, and Tony followed his example. "What is it? What's going on?"

"It would appear someone is here for you. I'm afraid we're going to have to continue this conversation at a different time. You are being called back. Brace yourself."

The "for what?" was on Tony's lips, but he never got the chance to ask. Riddle pressed his hand to Tony's chest and shoved. Tony fell back, and just like that, he was opening his eyes, taking a deep breath and jolting upwards.

"What the hell..."

The first thing he saw was Vision's concerned face staring down at him. "Mr. Stark. Lay down. Gently now."

He was still in the bunker, but at one point, Vision had apparently come to track him down. He had no idea how much time had passed. He still felt so fucking cold. But that wasn't a bad thing. Frostbite had apparently not settled in. He would not lose any limbs any time soon.

Most importantly, he was alive, and he knew the reason. His birth parents.

Could Vision see the slight green sheen that had settled over the armor? Of course he could. It was a little impossible to miss.

"Vis... Let's just keep this between the two of us, okay?"

He didn't know what had made Vision perform CPR on a corpse—if there had been anything about his dead body that had given the android hope.  Maybe his parents had done something to make sure that would happen. Either way, it didn't really matter. Vision often saw more than a simple human being. It came with the whole being a vessel for an Infinity Gem shtick. He didn't understand a lot of the subtleties of human nature, but this request and this development, he had no trouble with.  "Yes, of course. Come. Let me help you to the quinjet."

As the android helped Tony up, Vision's gaze fell onto the shield and then to the Iron Man armor and the crushed reactor. His mouth didn't move, but when their eyes met, Tony could practically hear exactly what Vision was thinking. "The patterns of destruction on the Iron Man suit match the vibranium shield of Captain Rogers. Assessment: Captain Rogers designation changed. Potential ally: enemy."

Vision was... angry. Angry on his behalf. Because Rogers had attacked him.

Tony should probably clarify things. He should probably explain the circumstances of the fight. It hadn't been solely Rogers's fault. He'd attacked Barnes first...

 _"Why should you?"_ a voice whispered at the back of his mind. _"Regardless of the circumstances, you were slighted, were you not? You deserve to have people angry on your behalf."_

Tony jerked so abruptly he nearly fell from Vision's hold. "Mr. Stark?" the android asked in concern.

"It's... It's okay. I'm fine."

He automatically reached for his chest in a nervous gesture, only to flinch when he realized that, despite the fact that he wasn't dead, his injuries weren't gone.

"Let's just go. I feel like I need to sleep for a week."

Fortunately, Vision didn't push him. Instead, he wordlessly helped Tony to the jet, where he finally removed the broken pieces of Tony's armor.

As he watched Vision work, something ugly and angry rose in Tony's chest. Screw it. Screw everything. Enough. No more.

How many times had he died for these people, and it was only his father's mumbo jumbo that had saved him?

How many times had he tried to help them, only to be turned away?

How many times had he been lied to his fucking face, while Captain Self-Righteous ranted at him about how his teammates didn't tell him things?

How many times had he been attacked, hurt and berated, because he'd tried to do the right thing?

And always, no matter how hard he tried—always he remained the Merchant of Death, always the one responsible for everything that went wrong.

He had tried to keep Steve from tearing the Avengers apart. "You did that when you signed," Steve had told him.

He'd done his best to give Maximoff a second chance, and she'd thrown it into his face and dumped a garage on him.

"The futurist," Barton had called out mockingly from his cell, all the while making a joke of how they should all be careful, lest he break their backs.

"I'm your conscience," Lang had said. "We don't speak much nowadays." He'd then proceeded to nearly kill of them by turning into something out of the nightmare of a kid who watched too much anime.

And Romanov... Her first report still burned, as much as he hated to admit it. Iron Man recommended, Tony Stark not recommended. And even now, years after the fact, still she turned her back on him. And it was, as ever, all about his ego.

Bruce was gone—in the wind—but then, Bruce had just stood by and watched as Thor choked him in his own home over Ultron. He'd turned away when Tony had reached out to him after the Mandarin. Just like Pepper.

No more. Enough.

 _"There is no good and evil,"_ Riddle said in his mind. _"There is only power and those too weak to seek it."_

Tony didn't know if he believed that, but he knew one thing. He had tried to be the hero, the nice guy, and it had ended with him dying alone in Siberia while choking on his own blood.

He wasn't willing to try a repeat performance. It was time to turn a new leaf.

He had believed that the Avengers were necessary to protect the world from future alien threats. Because he knew it was coming—knew it just like he had known  that he was different.

He had a laundry list of mistakes, too long to ever really atone for. But every single time he tried to fix a problem, he created a new one.

"You try to rid the world of weapons, and you gave it its best one ever," Stane had told him that night, when their armors had faced off in battle.

Maybe that was Tony's problem. Maybe the problem was that all this time, he had been afraid to seize the power that he knew he had.

 _"That's right,"_ Riddle whispered _. "Seize it. Use it. It is your birthright. It always was."_ After a few seconds, he added, _"You are not alone, not anymore."_

He sounded a little awkward saying that, and Tony had a feeling Riddle wasn't much for providing comfort to anyone.  Weirdly, that was what made the difference. For the first time since this whole debacle with the Accords had started—for the first time in years—Tony felt reassured. He truly felt that he had somebody's support.

Before, the only one he had been able to fully confide in had been JARVIS. But as much as he still loved JARVIS, their relationship had been different. JARVIS had grown past Tony's every expectation, but he had still been an AI Tony had built. And now... Well, JARVIS had been gone for years.

Riddle, on the other hand, saw things from a completely different perspective. If he was to be believed, he had no biases or other intentions beyond helping Tony. It certainly didn't hurt that his magic had kept Tony alive.

Maybe it was a horrible idea to rely on something so vague. Maybe Tony should be running away screaming or turning away from the guy who had admitted with his own mouth that he'd engineered a war that had almost destroyed a nation.

He didn't. Because Tony Stark had died in Siberia. And well... Maybe it went a little beyond that. As wary as he might feel of this strange man claiming to be his father, the image of his birth mother still stuck with him even now.

He could not doubt that, not ever. As impossible and unlikely as this tale might be, he could not deny his birth mother's existence.

And for that reason, even if Tony was not quite ready to call himself Tony Riddle, he would embrace the help of the man who'd apparently saved his life over and over and over again. After all, it was more than he'd gotten from anyone else in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> When Tony is born, Queenie is roughly 60-65 years old.
> 
> Voldemort is 43.
> 
> Yes I know conception between people of this age is… unlikely. Yes, I totally know they wouldn’t look like that at their age. But… Magic, okay? Just go with it.
> 
> And yes, I know I humanized Voldemort beyond canon. But I always did wonder what he was thinking about in his last moments. And he had a moment there, I believe when Nagini was killed, when he looked like he was crying. Thus…
> 
> For the purpose of this story, Voldemort’s eyes are dark brown (JK describes them as dark), not green like Christian Coulson’s.


End file.
